


Mistletoe and Type O Negative

by riyku



Series: Skam Sunday [23]
Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Even's mouth deserves its own tag, M/M, Vampire!Even, Vampires, even's teeth deserve a thousand tags, true fucking love, vaguely alluded to familiar!Isak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 23:53:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13134807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riyku/pseuds/riyku
Summary: Isak Valtersen: vampire hunter.  Kinda has a nice ring to it.





	Mistletoe and Type O Negative

**Author's Note:**

> happy sunday and happy christmas eve, lovelies!
> 
> true love is sending tebtosca this thing on christmas eve morning and having her roll with me. 
> 
> somewhat schmoopy vampire AU ahoy, if you can believe it. this thing swings between marshmallows and darkfic and is way less cracky than the title might suggest. 
> 
> nb: time is a very non-linear thing here. there are some back and forth shifts. also, major character death, but in a very undead kinda way. trust me when i say that these boys are forever. 
> 
> for my dearest JC, Kat, and Nish.

Isak Valtersen: vampire hunter. Kinda has a nice ring to it.

_Vampire_ hunter.

Vampire _hunter._

Of course, inflection can make a big difference.

* * * 

The sky is big, cracked open and a blue so deep and rare it borders on unreal. The sun is warm and gentle, sinking toward the horizon, shining down on Isak's face as he sits on the soft grass, overgrown like the rest of the yard. A small slice of chaos in the middle of a very manicured city.

Isak used to love the summers here. The long days and that weightless feeling he always had walking out of his door those first few mornings after winter had finally let go. Being able to unwrap from heavy coats and scarves and hats, sunshine burning away the cloud cover and the claustrophobic fog in his head.

He doesn't like them so much anymore.

Carefully, he threads the tape through the reel-to-reel player in front of him, flips a series of switches and the watery warble of early blues starts up out of the speaker, sounds like the song was recorded inside of a giant beer can. The thing is a dinosaur, outdated technology, rolled off of the production line at least thirty years before he was born, but Isak has always had a certain affection for old things. 

It took some doing, dragging this beast out from a dusty corner of the basement where he'd found it, then coming up with a series of extension cords that would reach this far, getting it disassembled and cleaned up then put back together the same way it had come apart. Sorting out audio cables and splicing wires. Hours during which his pale shoulders had cooked to a prickly pink, sweat tickling his scalp, grass marks on his legs.

He turns a dial and the music speeds up. Double-time. Triple, then he spins the dial again and it slows down to the speed of a funeral dirge. A tempo best suited to carrying a casket.

The sun is dropping, the lower edge of it now kissing the horizon, beginning to glow red. To the east, the sky is staining dark. Isak stands, brushes himself off, wipes sweat from his forehead with his wrist. He has to get inside and close the curtains. Even should be awake soon.

* * * 

Ice crunches under Isak's boots and his backpack pulls at his shoulders and there's this crystalline smell in the air that usually means more snow is coming soon. He's running late in about a dozen distinct ways. Four messages from Jonas all to the effect of any minute now, a botched deadline for school and now his folks want him to go to some nativity reenactment tomorrow night at his mother's church. He doesn't see the point of it, not when everybody already knows how that particular story turns out.

Isak's looking down, one glove dangling from his teeth while he types out a reply to Jonas, then finds another message from Eskild asking him to stop at the store and pick up some cream on the way home for eggnog. Which, whatever, gross, but he already owes Eskild a handful of favors and at least this one is easy.

Shop windows on both sides of the street glow with twinkle lights that reflect off of the damp pavement, garland and more lights criss-cross overhead, and the sidewalk is crowded with people. So many people, and one of them knocks into Isak, makes him slip some in the slush and drop his phone while all of his attention is funnelled into keeping upright. It clatters along the sidewalk and lands face down and Isak winces. It's currently Schrödinger's phone screen, potentially cracked and not cracked at the same time.

"Fuck me," Isak says, and looks over to see a pair of shoes not suited to the weather, up to the swaying legs of the man attached to them, further up to an unbuttoned coat and a scarf wrapped tightly around a neck and a face that would be forgettable except that it's so pale. Nearly green. Slack-mouthed and heavy-eyed and Isak knows really fucking drunk when he sees it.

"You should be more careful." A voice like a deep purr, and the sound of it attaches to certain receptors inside of Isak, washes over him like an opiate daze.

Isak narrows his eyes, a snarky reply on his tongue that never makes it past his teeth. 

The owner of the voice is guiding the drunk guy out of the way, toward the building, propping him against it, one hand gripping the juncture of his shoulder and neck and the other wrapped around his upper arm. Something intimate in the way their heads tip close together. They know each other.

"You should watch where you're walking," the man says with a little push to tell the guy to stay where he is. He turns toward Isak. A small smile on a full mouth. Collar pulled up to frame his angular jaw. Tall. Very tall, and the cut of his dark wool coat does wonders for his cinched in waist. Soft, almost gentle features laid over a foundation that could have been cut out of solid marble. Blue eyes so bright they beat away the dark.

"Are you alright?" the man asks Isak and steps forward, into the warm, yellow light from the shop window. Isak redefines him. He's hardly more than a kid, has a few years on Isak at most. Young, but with the bearing of an aristocrat. Shoulders back, chin up, a posture that's probably been trained into him and an accent that sounds off to Isak's ears although he can't quite tell how.

He's stunning, which isn't a word Isak has ever applied to a person before. Then again, he's never seen someone quite like this, never felt such an immediate need to touch someone's mouth, learn the shape of it with his fingers then learn the taste of it.

"Are you alright?" he repeats with the same soft inflection, his small smile still there. Unphased, as if he's used to being met with unblinking stares and frozen tongues. He stoops, picks up Isak's phone and holds it out to him and even his fingers are fascinating. Long and slim, the beds of his nails slightly blue from the cold. "It's still in one piece," he says, continuing his one-sided conversation, "No harm done."

"Yeah, thanks," Isak says as he takes the phone, and the shivery, hot thing that happens in his chest when their fingers touch is not at all harmless.

"Watch your step," he warns Isak. "It can get treacherous out here, after the sun goes down."

And what a strange word to use, treacherous, highly interpretable, like the tilt of his head and the tiny twitch of his smile after he says it, the arch of his eyebrow.

"Thanks," Isak says again, punctuates it with a laugh he wishes didn't sound so nervous and wasn't so visible, white breath fanning out and up. "Good luck with him," Isak goes on, a nod toward the guy still leaning against the building, knees locked in place and barely holding him upright.

Without glancing away, he says, "Don't worry about that. I'm used to it." A hint of humor mixed into the deep rumble of his voice and Isak doesn't know this person at all but now he sorta wants to find out what his laugh sounds like.

Isak nods, grins, sees a tram slowing down at his stop a block away and almost, _almost_ decides to miss it, wager the jigsaw of his night all on a chance to hear a stranger's laugh. "Everybody has at least one friend who always ends up like that," Isak says, taking a sideways step away and shooting a farewell salute.

It doesn't earn Isak a laugh, but something in his eyes turns warm and a bit of the metal melts out of his spine. "I guess that everybody does, but I don't know if I'd call him a friend."

* * * 

"An hour," Jonas says, and hoists himself up from where he'd been sitting on his skateboard, absently inching back and forth while he waited. "It's fucking freezing, dude." Without missing a beat, he goes on, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," Isak answers, and that's just like Jonas, that thin layer of irritation on top of a deep well of patient forgiveness. 

The skatepark is a ghost town tonight, sorta eerie under the metal halide glare. Ice all over everything, and Isak's head isn't in the game, stuffed full of potential double meanings and frostbitten blue fingernails and carefully chosen words like treacherous.

"You can still come with us this week. It's not too late. Plenty of room on the couch. You could help me carry the Christmas tree," Jonas offers again. This has been going on for a month and Isak's past the point of feeling like some weird surrogate cousin to the Vasquez family that no one's sure what to do with. He knows the offer is genuine and still can't quite stomach the idea of a cooped up five days in a cabin up north, making stoned small talk and listening to Christmas music and having Jonas's kid sister blush at him each time he looks her way.

"Thanks, but I'll probably just go see my mom, let her quote bible verses at me for a couple of hours. That should make her happy. Go home after and actually have the place to myself for a while. Maybe eat some pizza and catch up on Narcos."

Jonas gives him a look, doubtful and somehow half-impressed, the one that Jonas has been giving him for so long he might as well hold the patent on it. "I'm the one who's always talking about how we should fuck social norms, stop letting them rule our lives, but man, you're the one out there actually living it. That's hardcore, brother."

"Nah. Mostly it's just lazy with a side-order of genuine dislike for most people." It's enough to make Jonas punch him in the shoulder then hook his arm around Isak's neck in an awkward hug, both of them sliding some on the ice and laughing. 

"See?" Jonas says. " _Living_ it."

"Anyway," Isak goes on, breaking free and digging into his pocket. "A very merry to you." He palms the rolled up baggie and slips it to Jonas, cautious although there's no one around to see it. "It's good, might make the week more bearable."

Jonas turns serious. "We leave in two days. You don't even need to call if you change your mind, okay? Just show up." He squeezes Isak's shoulder, jostles him once more and Isak's reminded of exactly why he spent many of his formative years thinking he was in love with this kid.

Isak pats his pockets, checks the ground at his feet then checks his pockets again, comes up with only one glove and can't remember the last time he had the other.

* * * 

"I heard you out there. The music." Even walks into their bedroom. He's predator-silent, but he doesn't surprise Isak. Not much scares him these days. The silky, cream-colored pants Even's wearing are only a shade lighter than his bare chest, clinging low to his hips. He stretches, arms above his head, neck craned to the side, an affectation for Isak's benefit, and it puts his ribs on display, makes Isak want to walk his fingers up them, follow them with his tongue.

"I was trying to keep quiet," Isak says and puts the book he's reading face down on the bed. It's some lesser horror novel, laughable for all the things the author accidentally got right. He reaches out toward Even, touches his wrist, the inside of his arm, the ditch of his elbow, traces the intricate vinework of his junkie veins. He allows Even to pull him to his feet, knows without Even having to say it that Even is feeling a bit formal tonight. Little ceremonies he's devised to fill up a long, long life.

"There's no such thing as quiet. I can always hear you." Even drops to one knee in front of him, bows his head like Isak is royalty, not some kid who he plucked out of the low-rent section of town. His loose hair spills across his face and Isak falls for him all over again. This boy. This beautiful boy, the most powerful soul Isak has ever known and it's staggering, how readily he'll sink to his knees.

"Always? Even from the other side of the world?" Isak says it like a question. It isn't.

"Especially then," Even says, and kisses Isak's fingertips, his knuckles, the back of his hand, lets his mouth linger there. 

Isak cups the back of his head, pulls him in until Even's cheek is resting against his stomach and Even's hands are on his hips. Until Even's lips find his skin and there's a whisper-scrape of teeth and Isak's blood starts rushing through his body. Until Even's kisses change from tender to something more than tender. Until Even's left behind a deep purple map made out of small sucked-on bruises to show where he's been and where he plans to go.

"You taste like the sun," Even says as he rises to his feet, buries his face in Isak's neck and breathes in deep. "You smell like it, too." He touches Isak’s temple, another affectation. He doesn't need it to read him, never has. It's his way of asking permission. "What did it look like today? Show me."

"Not now," Isak says, and kisses the corner of Even's mouth. "I'm still saving those memories up." He guides Even toward the bed and pulls him down on top of him, makes room for him between his legs. "C'mon, let's float for a while."

A nuzzle into Isak's throat, nothing more than that, and Isak arches up. Into him and around him. Even hums, flattens his tongue against Isak's pulse before saying, "Alright, a daydream instead. Where do you want to go?" He's such a fucking tease sometimes.

"Take me back to the night we met." Isak moves his hand down Even's spine. Counts vertebrae like he's counting the years they've known each other.

Even laughs, and it's a miracle to Isak that he gets to hear it everyday, that he's more often than not the reason for it. "There's not much to see. You dropped your phone and I became obsessed. It's a very short story."

"It's a very short beginning to a longer story, but no, not that night," Isak clarifies. "The night I learned your name."

Even gathers his arms around Isak, bears down and it spreads Isak's legs further apart. All this strength hidden within the thin, nearly waifish architecture of his body. "That's a better story." He kisses along Isak's jaw, sucks on his bottom lip and Isak feels the shape of his teeth change. Grow sharp. Even pushes his tongue inside of Isak's mouth. He tastes sweeter than candy.

They float.

* * * 

Isak's plugged into his laptop, Tupac drowning out the Christmas music piped through the coffee shop's sound system. He's bumped up against the extension he got on his paper for school, figures it's probably not wise to piss his teacher off more than he already has.

The buzz from the joint he smoked earlier is wearing thin, replaced by the caffeine from his second cup of coffee. The finish line is in sight. A closing statement and a few citations and he's got it, won't have to close the place down like he has for the last couple of nights.

Isak writes Eskild to ask if he has the all-clear to come home again. The lack of answer tells Isak what he needs to know, that Eskild's man of the night is still there. Eskild's looking at a dry spell while he visits his folks, has decided to wear out Grindr and himself while he still can.

Email to his teacher sent. Coffee finished. Ass numb from the hours he's spent glued to the stool. Outside, light snow is beginning to fall again.

A glove falls beside his closed laptop. His glove. There's a smell of something spicy. Warm. Like cinnamon.

"Hello." That voice. Isak's spent the last few days reconstructing it in his head and still didn't come close.

"Hello, you," Isak says, his heart in a tailspin that he hopes doesn't show on his face, like he's gotten a shot of pure adrenaline. 

And fuck, he's beautiful, with his upswept hair and cut-glass jaw and the brightness in his eyes that seems to shine from the inside out. Isak's memory of him a transparent ghost compared to the reality of him.

"Even," the guy introduces himself, hand held out, "and I'm so glad I found you."

"Isak," he says as he grasps Even's hand, Even's chilly fingers wrapping around him. "I'm so glad to be found. Hell of a coincidence." It takes some effort to let go, to not keep holding on until he's dragged Even to his apartment, or more specifically his bed, then keep holding on, only tighter. 

Even smiles. Just smiles, big and wide, a whiplash sorta smile, canines digging into his bottom lip. "Can I buy you another coffee? It's the least I can do, after holding your glove hostage for days."

"Sure." Not that Isak needs it, but he does need the time it'll buy him with Even.

"Sweet or bitter?" Even's turning away toward the counter.

"Sweet," Isak calls out, and watches the way Even walks, how he dives into his inner jacket pocket for money, a sort of inherent grace straight down to his smallest movements, as if the ground beneath his feet is a convenience and not a necessity.

Minutes later, Even returns carrying two cups to go. "Take your pick."  
Isak sips the first one, tastes caramel and cream, the second one peppermint and chocolate and that's the one he chooses. He hands the first one back to Even, who takes a sip, puts his mouth where Isak's had just been.

"So you like peppermint. Very festive of you." His tongue sneaks out, skims the lower edge of his teeth upper teeth in a way that Isak will soon learn is a habit. "I thought we'd walk."

There's a Christmas market set up in the square at the end of the street, alleyways made out of temporary booths and tents all brightly lit, so much garland it actually smells like a pine forest, and that's where Even leads them. He's carrying Isak's backpack slung over one shoulder and walks close to him, leaning in closer to listen to him talk, as they dodge people and shopping bags and big metal drums with open fires.

Isak's surprised to learn how tactile Even is, as if he doesn't operate within the same borders of intimacy as most people. He's constantly touching the back of Isak's neck to get his attention, turn him toward some bauble or ornament, a tray of shiny silver pendants or a table piled with hand-knitted scarves. 

Even takes Isak's hand to pull him toward a booth selling greenery, launches into an explanation of how so many traditions were actually co-opted from the people who worshiped the old norse gods, all these things that Isak already knows but likes listening to Even put it in his own words anyway.

He's still holding Isak's hand, thumb rubbing absent circles on the back of it. "When you kiss under the mistletoe, you're supposed to remember the death of Baldur, Odin's son. Loki killed him with a spear made of it. That's how one story goes, anyway."

"That's pretty fucking morbid," Isak says, and Even lets go of his hand, softens the loss by squeezing Isak's shoulder, brushing away some of the snow.

"A lot of the stories are." Even takes a sip of his coffee, breathes out a cloud of white on a silent laugh, knuckles the upturn of Isak's jaw and it takes everything Isak has to not not lean into it. "Good thing they're just stories."

They start off again, elbows touching, Isak one snap decision away from daring to loop his arm through Even's.

"Your accent. Where are you from?" Isak asks.

Even cuts a glance toward Isak, and there's his tongue again, that quick touch to his teeth. "I was born here, but I've lived in a lot of different places. My accent is a dreadful hybrid, anymore."

"I like it," Isak assures him, when he really wants to say I like _you,_ and your smile, and those hands you can't keep to yourself, and the way my heart beats when I'm with you and it's only been hours but I've been thinking about you for days, you're a busted vinyl in my head, a ten-second refrain on a loop and nothing like this has ever happened to me before but if you kissed me I'd kiss you back, I promise. I promise.  
A hesitation, not so much a missed step as a pause between one step and the next, then Even slides his hand around Isak's middle and pulls them closer as they round a corner, move further into the rat-maze of stalls. He has an inclination to turn left.

"I'm glad I came back. The winters are nice here."

"They're fucking awful. Cold. Dark," Isak pauses, throws Even's word back at him. " _Treacherous._ "

"Stay close to me, and you'll be fine." Even's eyes become tiny crescent moons when he smiles like that. Isak forgets to breathe when Even smiles like that.

* * * 

"You're growing older." Even pricks his thumb with one sharp canine and lays his arm over Isak's shoulders, slots his thumb into Isak's mouth as they walk through a manicured city park.

It's a pretty night, warm enough for short sleeves and the air smells like fresh-cut grass and night-blooming flowers. They're walking toward the dark back corner, to a spot where the all-night boys and girls make their money.

"You could fix that," Isak says, then sucks harder on Even's thumb, thinks about cinnamon. Something like relief coils through his body, muscles relaxing, growing liquid. How a smackhead must feel after he reaches over and hammers home the first shot of the day.

"Soon," Even tells him, the same answer he's always given. He's been saying it for thirty years, allowing Isak to nurse from him but never allowing him to become full. It's slowed Isak's aging, made it so Isak still gets carded for beer. The laugh lines are there though, and the dimples Even likes to dig his fingers into are deeper than they were the night they met.

"Do you want me to do it?" Isak asks. It's amazing, the things he's willing to do with his heart all filled up with Even.

"No. I think it's my turn."

They turn heads when the get where they're going, and Even zeroes in on someone right away, a guy who looks like he hasn't had a decent meal in months. Even stuffs his pocket full of money, guides him away by the wrist and Isak follows.

Even calls him beautiful and means it. Says everything is going to be fine as the panic kicks in. Isak used to get jealous, used to have to turn away. Now he watches.

* * * 

Isak is three blocks away from his apartment and twenty minutes past the first time he kissed Even.

It had been hot chocolate tonight and a walk around the big Christmas tree set up in the center of the city. It had been Even not taking pity on him when Isak had wanted to spend Christmas Eve with him and not his family. No questions, just acceptance. It had been real chocolate with real cream and a pinch of chili that made everything sweeter.

It had been a warm mouth and a cream-coated tongue and a pinky swear to see each other again in two days. It had been Isak wanting Even to come home with him but not quite daring to ask.

Now it's an arm wrenched sideways and Isak's face pressed against the rough brick wall and a deserted street and what little money he's got in his back pocket torn out of it. It's the now-familiar whiff of cinnamon and an inhuman growl and a cut-off cry of pain and the jarring sensation of suddenly being shoved backward, and the fucker who took his money and maybe his phone is dangling two feet from the ground with a hand around his throat and it's Even. Even. Even twisting the fucker's head to the side and exposing his throat. The damp, stomach-clenching sound as he bites down and another cry of pain. Even dropping the guy like a crumpled sack and spitting on the ground, a rorschach splatter of blood. Licking lips that were so soft to kiss, then doing it again. A dark look from Even, fear and anger and more anger, muttering a word Isak doesn't know but recognizes as a filthy curse before he forces the guy's mouth open and spits into it, then licks his palm and smears it across the guy's torn open neck.

"You'll never do this again," Even says, command in his voice. "You will never touch anyone with the intent to harm them. You will have no memory of tonight. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes. Yes," the guy says, stuttering and slow, struggling for balance as Even yanks him up and pushes him away.

Even turns to Isak, wipes at his mouth and Isak's fucked-up, misfiring mind reads the movement as dainty. Precious. Impossibly polite. He searches Isak's face like he's trying to track his ricocheting thoughts.

"It's real. I'm real," Even says, plucking two questions out of Isak's mind. The loudest ones. He steps forward and it's a goddamn miracle that Isak holds his ground.

"You're in my head," Isak whispers.

"Not in the way you think." 

"You saved me."

"Not in the way you think," Even repeats. The look he gives Isak sinks into his chest. So easy. Hot knife into soft butter easy. He laughs. The dry, defeated chuckle of a person who doesn't have anything left to lose except everything. "Do you still wanna fuck me? Do you still want me to fuck you?"

Isak steps forward and takes Even's hand. It's sticky with blood, but not so bad. Not so bad at all.

* * * 

Isak is thirty minutes past the first time he kissed Even, and Even is standing in his doorway, toes to the threshold. If Isak were to kiss him again, he wouldn't taste like chocolate anymore.

"Is the myth true? That you can't come in unless I invite you?" The living room is at Isak's back. The slouching couch and worn out coffee table and the lamps Isak's fairly sure are Noora's contribution, and it's probably the shock, but suddenly everything seems so flat. Mundane. Even is the only thing that's three-dimensional, the only thing in sure focus.

"No," Even says, his calmness and that soft smile reasserting itself, a touch more red than it was before. He licks his canine, and Isak, fascinated, watches it retract. "There's nothing stopping me, but an invitation would be nice. I might be a monster, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't have good manners."

* * * 

These are the things that Isak has learned. Some of them, anyway:

Even can be exposed to sunlight for very, very short periods of time. Three seconds in it, and it will take him a week to recover. It's a fucking bloodbath.

Crosses are fine. So is silver. Hallowed ground doesn't trip him up. Even enjoys churches, their vaulted ceilings and domes and statuary, the stained glass windows and ornate altars and velvet-covered benches made for kneeling. Catholic masses are his favorite, even better when they're in Latin. The aggiornamento can go screw itself.

Drop a box of pins or toothpicks in front of him, and he does have to count them, put them in order. That myth is true. Or it could just be Even.

Even is nine hundred years old, give or take. He stopped keeping track around the time the plague was making the front page of the papers. It took a while for that to sink in for Isak. It also took a while for Isak to grow used to how time slips for Even, how he doesn't reckon it in a linear way, so Isak has started to slip as well. Even thinks in terms of summers and winters, moon phases and the amount of time he'll have to stay underground during any given day. Ask him the year and he'll never be able to tell you. Ask him to remember a name and he'll know it before you've finished the question.

Even is a killer. He has killed. And that's something that Isak accepted faster than he thought possible. 

Even Bech Næsheim is a vampire, and in the big scheme of things, Isak swallowed that one whole.

* * * 

Spring and the days are getting noticeably longer, his time with Even shorter. In a month, Isak will be eighteen, finally able to buy beer and drive a car. That used to seem so far off. Now it's a drop.

"I can take the pain of it away," Even says. He's stretched out beside Isak on his bed, their legs set in a tangle. Dark red sheets beneath them because Isak's been planning this for a while. Asking. Making promises.

"Don't fucking dare," Isak says, doesn't see the point of it if he can't feel it.

"We won't go deep. I want you awake." Even starts tracing his fingertip all over Isak's body, making Isak shiver and buck up into nothing, naming the major arteries as he goes. Femoral, brachial, iliac, carotid. He slides down Isak, pushes his legs apart and noses at his balls, swipes his tongue along the soft, sensitive skin where his thigh meets his body. "Fuck, you smell so good."

Isak digs his hands into Even's hair, feels the silky slip of it between his fingers. Anticipation has him in a chokehold so tight he's starting to wonder if it's sentient, intentional, and then. Then. Everything slows down. Stops. Starts up sluggish as Even licks along the crease of his thigh again, spans his hands around Isak's legs, a hint of pressure as his nails dig in then the puncture. The very first time Even's broken skin and Isak gasps, can't look away. Can't blink. A trickle of blood drips down his skin, more of it forms a seal around Even's mouth as Even sucks and sucks, comes up for air that he doesn't really need, eyes cracking into Isak's with the power of an earthquake, rattling Isak to the core.

Images flash into Isak's head: Isak walking down a snow covered street. Isak through a foggy coffee shop window, studying late at night. Isak at the skatepark, his arm around Jonas and laughing at something Jonas just said. Dozens of others and in every single one, he shines so bright, something golden about him.

"Fuck. Fuck," Isak breathes. "Is that how you see me?"

Even laps at him, picks up a drop of blood with his index finger and sucks it clean, hides his face against Isak's stomach like he's actually become a little shy. His lips are blood-stained and his cheeks are coloring from a dose of o-negative, and he says, "You weren't supposed to see that." 

Even leaves anemic smears of blood along Isak's stomach, mouth marks on the inside of Isak's elbow and he's so fucking _warm_ right now. His cock a hot line against Isak's leg as he mindlessly rubs against him. Sharp fangs sink into Isak's wrist, and that's even better, a clearer view, pink-stained teeth, red gathered in the dips where his teeth meet, hollow cheeks and an expression on Even's face like he's finally found pure ecstasy. Like he's waited and wandered his entire long, long, unimaginably long life looking for it and can't believe he's finally found it.

"You're inside of me now. You're everywhere, and it's…" Even doesn't finish the thought, just smiles, tongue sliding between Isak's lips before the rest of his mouth gets there. He pushes into Isak, fucks him good and deep and slow, small cuts to his collarbone and throat that he'll heal later, after he's licked them clean. He gets Isak off just from the rub of their stomachs and it almost feels like an afterthought.

"The vena amoris," Even says after, toying with the ring finger on Isak's left hand. "There's a vein that runs directly from the heart to this finger, and that's why people wear their wedding bands on it."

"Really?" Blood still trickles from a dozen small cuts, stinging some now that the Isak's settling more firmly into his body again.

"No," Even says around a low laugh. "It's a myth."

"Like you," Isak says.

"There used to be a tradition," Even goes on, tracing his fingernail along the base of Isak's finger. "A mark."

Isak sits up, hand held out toward him. "Do it."

"It's possessive. Archaic," Even warns.

"Like you."

* * * 

"I've seen my last sunrise." Isak's less sad about it than he thought he would be, more relieved.

Even comes up behind him. He's dressed in formal black-on-black tonight, a silk shirt and slim trousers and a waistcoat so snug it reminds Isak of a corset. Suited up for a ceremony. This is a big one. "You are all of my sunrises," he says, and latches onto Isak's throat, hums into it to ask if Isak is ready.

"I trust you." It's the most truthful thing Isak's ever said. Even's grip around his waist tightens, and it's the only warning Isak gets. Not that it's necessary. He tastes peppermint and chocolate.

Isak's heart slows. Slows. Stops.

* * * 

The first thing he sees is Even. There's something different about him. Something golden.

"Look at that." Even pushes at his lips, rubs his thumb across slick enamel and Isak's canines respond to it, grow elongated and sharp. "What interesting teeth you have."

 

\--end


End file.
